


[Fic & Art] as much a light as a flame

by p1013



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Anal Sex, Art, Claiming, Comeplay, H/D Sex Fair 2020, Knotting, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Rituals, Outdoor Sex, POV Draco Malfoy, Scent Kink, Werewolf Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26122111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p1013/pseuds/p1013
Summary: His mother paints a wolf on his chest, its eyes bracketing his heart, and its muzzle pointed towards his groin. His aunt fills in the spaces around his waist and ribs with symbols he's lost the meaning of in the wash of whatever plant had been mixed in with the steam. They move after her brush leaves his skin, turning from incomprehensible marks to his name to wolf to home to hunt and then back to misunderstanding again.His legs are painted in patterned bands, starting from his ankles and ending at his upper thighs. His groin is left unmarked, the pale and empty skin meant to leave no doubt of the Claim once he makes it.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 94
Kudos: 642
Collections: 2020 Harry/Draco Sex Fair





	[Fic & Art] as much a light as a flame

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt #[201](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12_5f6f0xUXhqtWfMlhXRyA8kDC3KGShN3oa_IOD12DY/edit#).
> 
> Pureblood families have elaborate mating rituals when they're seeking their mates. As Draco prepares for his first mating run, he goes through the motions while hoping the only man he's ever wanted will be at the ceremony.
> 
> Big thanks to J for her beta read. You are patient and kind and amazing, and I cannot say thank you enough for helping me polish this up. 😘
> 
> And more thanks to the lovely Fan Fair 2020 mod team! You're all amazing, and it has been SO MUCH FUN participating this year.

There is a legend. 

Once, long ago, the Forest was filled with Magic. It flowed through the glens and fields like water, soared through the sky like clouds, filled the land like the roots of trees. The animals of the Forest ate and drank of it, the power as much a part of their sustenance as grass and flesh. It filled their bodies with light, and when they passed beyond the Veil that no one may return from, they gave that light back to the land in turn. Magic was given and returned freely, and it was good.

Until the Wolves came.

They came like a violent storm through the Forest. Their feet pounded on the ground like thunder. Their teeth flashed like lightning. And like the other animals of the Forest, they ate. They devoured. They gorged on flesh and Magic alike.

But unlike the other creatures, they did not return the Magic to the land from whence it came. They turned it instead to their own bodies, shifting and changing until they took on another shape: the shape of Man.

Once they changed their bodies, they desired to change the Forest. They made tools of wicked steel, new fangs for their transformed shapes, and used them to devour the Forest itself. They built dens from the bones of the land, warmed them with the broken limbs of trees. The Forest fell, and as it did, the Magic faded. But the Men paid it no notice, too consumed by their desire for more. Slowly, the Men became trapped in their new forms, their past as Wolves faded and forgotten. And though they still had some of the Magic — for it was a part of the land, no matter how much of it the Men took — they no longer feasted on it. They starved for it and became wasted and thin. Their houses of stone and wood moldered, and their bodies weakened.

One day, a maiden came to the town of Men. Her hair was as white as snow and so long, it nearly touched the ground. Her clothing was simple and plain, but when she moved, it flowed like water around her lithe form. Her eyes were a deep green, the same color as the leaves that shaded her as she walked down the path away from the Forest.

"Take me to your clansman, the one to whom you swear fealty," she said, and her voice was like wind through branches. The Men desired and feared her, for she had power and beauty and was unafraid, though they wore knives on their belts and had hunger in their eyes.

"Why would we take you to him when we could have you for ourselves?" they asked.

"Because I am from the Forest, and I will speak only to him." As she spoke, light gathered around her like power, and they could taste the Magic of it. Starving and subdued, they shook and showed her to the lodge.

Though he was as thin and wasted as his people, the lord was still handsome and fine of form. When she entered, he stood. The Magic that gathered around her like a cloak brightened the room, and in the light of her power, he was entranced. And though he bowed for no one, he bowed for her.

"My lady," he said, "welcome to my home. You are my guest from this moment on. Tell me what is it you desire so that I might grant it."

"I wish you to remember."

For weeks following, he tried to give her what she'd asked. They walked together through the town and along the edges of the Forest, though they did not enter. They sat in wide-open fields among the blooming flowers of spring and talked. She gazed at stars, and he gazed at her, and slowly, he fell in love.

"Whatever you ask of me, you shall have," he said.

"Remember," was all she ever said in return.

Until the night of the full moon. It shone over the town as her power shone around her, and as he watched both, he felt a stirring in his blood, a rhythm of muscle and bone, a memory of running on four feet instead of two.

Before he could form words, she smiled and spoke. "You have given me what I asked, and so I will give you something in return. Once a month, when the moon is full, you shall return to what you once were. While in that shape, you shall have no Magic, but you shall have the Earth and the Water and the Wind, and the Forest holding all of you in its arms. You shall have freedom."

"And I shall have you," he said as he threw off his human shape and became Wolf again.

Laughing, she ran into the Forest, and her body shifted and changed as well, finally revealing her true form, a deer as white as snow and foaming water.

It is said that the pair of them still race through the Forest to this day, his howls echoing as she lightly dances from his snapping jaws. During the months when the full moon comes twice, it is believed that he catches the maiden, and makes her a maiden no more.

And thus were werewolves born.

* * *

Draco's mother wakes him at dawn, the sun peeking over the horizon and casting the world in gold. She only has to whisper his name to rouse him from his fitful rest. After offering him a simple cotton robe, she leaves him to change. His skin, still warm from sleep, prickles against the rough material. He tightens the belt, straightens his shoulders, and steps out of his bedroom. In the hallway, Narcissa takes his hand, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

"Let's get you started, darling," she says, drawing him towards the stairs.

Their home isn't large. The ceilings aren't soaring, the walls still rough hewn wood rather than covered in plaster or paint. With only two stories, it's far from the largest home in the Malfoy Pack, but the size and state of it isn't what makes it a place of power. That is nestled beneath the living quarters (and in their blood).

The cellars are cold, and he wishes desperately that he could wear anything other than the robe. But, though his bare feet quickly grow numb against the cold flagstone floor, he walks towards the bathing room without fear, only a growing sense of anticipation.

The sunken pool is as old as the house, maybe older. When he was a child, his grandmother would gather him into her arms and tell him of how the Malfoy Pack found the hot spring, warm and steaming in the dead of winter, and built their den on its banks.

"It was power and salvation," she said, her voice scratching like thistles. "And so, we built our home over it, to keep it safe as it kept us safe when we most needed it."

Now, memories of his grandmother far behind him, he takes his robe off his shoulders and steps into the sulfur-scented pool. The heat of it stings his skin at first, but then it becomes soothing. Sinking into the water up to his chin, he closes his eyes and breathes.

Without the distraction of sight, Draco can feel the pull of the moon. It will be full tonight, and he and his family will run beneath its pure, cold light in their true forms. But this is the second full moon of the month, which means tonight is a Claiming Run.

Draco's first.

He turned eighteen at the beginning of the month, just a few days after the last full moon. With this blue moon rising and Draco now of age, he's expected to find his mate. Tonight.

The thought should fill him with trepidation, but just as the hot water soothes him and the moon pulls at his blood, the knowledge that he might find the one meant for him, the one chosen by the Maiden and the Lord, leaves him feeling overheated and drawn inexorably forward towards the night and his future.

There's rough, homemade soap sitting on the edge of the pool, the rock underneath it curved and cupped from generations of hands like his using it for the same purpose. Draco rubs the bar over his skin. The smell of pine and charcoal fills his nose, blocking out the sulfur of the pool and any lingering hints of his own scent in his nose. Werewolves have heightened senses, even in their human forms, and part of the cleansing is to deaden smell until the Run, when the wolf will take over. It's bad luck to scent your mate before the Run, and Draco works the lather into the creases of his neck and his hair, surrounding himself with the sharp clean smell until it makes his head start to ache.

After ducking under the water to rinse, he steps from the pool and shivers. The robe is gone, taken at some point by his mother or by magic, and he hurries onto the next room, the next step of the cleansing.

When he steps into the sauna, the rapid change in temperature shocks his breath from him. Two levels of cedar benches surround a brazier that's laden with heated rocks. After shutting the door, Draco pours a ladle of water over them. Steam billows. Though he can barely make it out over the pine smell of his own body, he catches a hint of something earthy. He breathes it in, chasing the scent, and the room spins around him.

He'd forgotten about the herbs.

Settling heavily on the cedar benches encircling the brazier, he leans back, arms on the second level of benches, and tilts his face up. The room moves in odd, shifting motions like waves lapping against a beach, until eventually it stills and settles around him. Whenever he moves his head, it swirls again. The steam wreathes its way around him, drawing heated hands across his naked flesh. It's soothing and teasing all at once, and he pours more water on the rocks, sending the room into a kaleidoscope of motion.

When the rocks finally grow cold and his body is hot and covered in sweat, he staggers his way back to the pool, dunks himself in it once more, pulls the robe on, then stumbles to the stairs to the main level of the house.

His mother is waiting for him again, along with his aunt. Though they're sisters, the two women look anything but related. His mother, all poise and grace and light, shining hair, and his aunt, a dark riotous tumble of curls like the thickest underbrush of the forest come to life. But they're both betas in the pack and carry themselves with strength and unspoken power. He can see it gathered around them in flashes of light, auras that wreathe their heads and shoulders in brilliant colors. He reaches for his mother's and tries to trail his fingers through the light, and she takes his hand in hers, laughing.

"That will fade," she says softly.

Bellatrix takes his other hand, and they draw him down the hallway together. The rough-hewn wooden walls shift as he moves, figures darting and dancing through the grain and whorled knots. His wolf snaps its teeth after them like it's hunting prey, and Draco has to fight back the shift.

"It's a good sign," Bellatrix says before running her fingers over the claws that have grown from his fingers. "The wolf is strong."

Narcissa shakes her head. "The wolf is overly excited. Hold it in check until the Run. You'll need its power then."

Draco nods, and the world spins again. The shadows run ahead of them, laughing until they disappear in the light filtering through the horn windows in the front room. Though it's the middle of summer, there's a fire blazing. The flames in the sunken hearth of stone crackle and snap like the bones of birds between teeth. Draco leans into the heat of it, his body shaking with a cold that feels like fever.

"Not too close," his mother warns before taking the robe from his body. She throws it into the flames, and they roar as they devour the fabric. "Bellatrix, the paints."

He's entranced by the flames, captured by them like burning cotton. He doesn't know how long it takes for his aunt to join them at the fireside with the earthenware bowls of paint and the brushes made of badger fur and reeds, but her touch on his hand draws his attention to her. She raises it, his mother mirroring her motions, until Draco stands naked before the fire, his arms stretched out like wings. He closes his eyes and imagines he's flying, and that the gentle touch of their brushes on his skin are clouds coursing over his feathers.

The paint is cold at first, but warms quickly. He feels it like rain against his skin, like the trickle of a stream against his ankles, the winter wind whipping through his hair as he runs among the trees of the forest they call home. When he drags his eyes open, the lids weighed down by drugs and languor, he stares at the swirling lines of blue covering his skin.

Along the gentle dips and rises of his arms are trees, their limbs extended like his own. When he rolls his palms over, they shift with the motion as if a breeze had ripped its way through their towering heights. He does it again, settling the forest to rights again.

His mother paints a wolf on his chest, its eyes bracketing his heart, and its muzzle pointed towards his groin. His aunt fills in the spaces around his waist and ribs with symbols he's lost the meaning of in the wash of whatever plant had been mixed in with the steam. They move after her brush leaves his skin, turning from incomprehensible marks to his name to _wolf_ to _home_ to _hunt_ and then back to misunderstanding again.

His legs are painted in patterned bands, starting from his ankles and ending at his upper thighs. His groin is left unmarked, the pale and empty skin meant to leave no doubt of the Claim once he makes it. 

If he makes it.

There is always a chance that his mate won't be gathered before his family's home this evening. The villages scattered through the Malfoy territory will have their doors shut tight tonight. Anyone outside at moonrise is considered a Claimant, and no one who isn't already preparing themselves will want to be caught by a wolf. Most, wolf or human, don't want to be Claimed. It's a magical thing, but it's powerful as well. It shapes and changes you, as much a transformation as a wolf's body shifting from Man to Beast.

It's hard on the wolves running, too. There are so few to choose from, not that the number matters. There's only ever one to be Claimed, whether they run at night or not. It took his father four Claiming Runs before he found Draco's mother, and though the finding was all the sweeter for the wait, the thought leaves Draco restless and wanting.

It will be tonight, he thinks, or not at all. Inside his chest, his wolf stills then howls its agreement.

"Strong, indeed," his aunt says before her brush touches his back, the paint cold but warming quickly. He can't make out the shapes she paints there, but his mother makes a noise like praise, and he trusts her more than anyone, so he doesn't worry. Instead, his mind wanders, running free through the trees outside while his body stands still and ready, waiting.

* * *

Perched before the fire, the paint cracking on his skin as he breathes, he fasts and meditates. His mother and aunt continue to add wood and herbs to the flames. His head swims with hunger and intoxication and anticipation, and his wolf prowls though Draco cannot. They're both ready for nightfall, and as the sun sinks lower in the sky and the moon rises, his blood heats and pounds and surges like a wave brought from the sea to beat at the shore.

His mother's touch on his shoulder is gentle, but it startles him all the same.

"It's time," she says, as if Draco should know. He looks to the horn windows, surprised to see that the light from earlier has been doused by night. When he rises to his feet, his muscles cramp, and though he doesn't make a sound, his mother shushes him as he fights the pain.

"Come." She draws him towards the door, and he stumbles after her, still naked and uncaring.

The night air is cold and redolent with the scent of summer. He can taste green on his tongue, can smell growth and life in the dark-damp air. The night sky has invaded the forest, and green stars cover the trees surrounding their home. Glow worms, he knows, but as they shift and sparkle, all he can think of is galaxies swirling through the underbrush like wind, ready to carry him off into an unknown world where something wonderful awaits.

His mother calls his name, and he turns his spinning head in her direction. She's holding something that smells of age and bone in her hands. It's the skull of a stag, the eye sockets filled with shadows, its antlers tangled with thread and beads in blue and white and black. It rattles when she shifts its weight in her hands, and he takes a step forward, knowing what she offers before she does.

"For you," she says quietly before lifting it. He dips his head, and she places the headdress over his silver-white hair. The bone is nearly the same shade, though it doesn't gleam like his hair does. The moonlight sinks into the crevices and cracks of it, turning what should be a heavy, unwieldy thing into a creation of gossamer and string. His eyes rest in the empty sockets, and as he looks at his mother through them, the world stills.

She is beautiful, as she always is, but her aura grows until it's blinding, and Draco has to look away. The beads clatter against the skull like raindrops on their roof. It centers him, draws his attention back to the here and now instead of the woods and the call of his blood.

His aunt is at his elbow. Though he can't see her with the headdress on, he can smell her and feel her heat near his side. He'd know her anywhere, this elder of his pack, his guide and shaman. "Almost," she says quietly. "Not much longer now."

There's a rustling from the forest, and slowly, others dressed like Draco join him in the open patch of grass before his home. Their headdresses are made of deer and elk, birds and mice and voles all woven together with glinting metal wire. None are as simple or as grand as his. He shakes his antlers, the beads ringing against the bone, and they gather around him.

This is his pack, his family. He knows who is with him though their faces are covered. There are only four of them tonight: Pansy, Greg, Vince, and Draco. The others either aren't of age or have already claimed their mates. Tonight, he will run with his closest friends, all of them hunting the same thing.

Their futures.

The wind shifts, and the flavour of the air changes. Instead of the forest and pine, of bone and dust, Draco tastes bleached cotton. He turns, breathing deeply, and takes in the line of people gathered along the edge of the clearing.

Their faces are clearly visible, hair pulled back in braids or pinned away. They wear no ornaments, only plain white shifts that drop to their bare feet. He doesn't know them all, this gathered assembly of Claimants. There's a redheaded young woman he remembers from the last meeting with the Weasley pack, and a bushy-haired girl from the nearest town, her eyes sharp with intelligence and fear. A tall man, his hair dark and his hands stained with earth, smells like growth, and as Draco takes another biting breath of air, he thinks he recognizes the man's scent from the vegetables his mother buys from a farmer whose land butts up against theirs.

None of them smell right.

His wolf growls, suddenly desperate, and Draco has to hold its flashing teeth back. Nails already turning to claws, he curls his hands into fists and digs his feet into the earth.

"There is a legend." His father steps from the edge of the forest, blond hair like molten silver around his shoulders, his upper body bared to the night air though his legs are encased in soft trousers of doe skin. "And tonight, that legend becomes truth. Tonight, wolves will hunt until their chosen one is Claimed. So run and run well. May the Maiden watch over you as you do."

The line of youths shifts, then they turn and step into the forest, their white shifts standing out in the gloom of night like reflected moonlight. Next to him, Draco hears Pansy growl. He wants to calm her, to help his packmate, but then the wind shifts again, and his head spins like it had with the herbs, the world around him turning indistinct and thin, everything held together by the tenuous scent that's filled his mind to the point of overflowing.

It's sharp and spicy, a citrus tang with a hint of wood shavings. Musk and sweat meld with leather and the iron gleam of a blade. Draco's mouth waters. He hungers. He needs more.

Head tilted back to the night sky, mouth open so he might breathe in more of that delicious hint of possibility, he howls.

The pack erupts around him, disappearing into the night. But while his three friends hurry after the already indistinct forms of the Claimants, Draco turns sharply left, bounding through the woods on a path that only he can see.

Scent and instinct draw him forward. The forest races past him in a blur, its beseeching arms reaching for him and falling away. Draco doesn't feel the pain of the thin branches dragging lines of bloody red across his skin, marring the paint and dying it purple. All he can think of, all he can _feel,_ is that pull forward. The scent draws him like a snare, and he's trapped as firmly in its soft hands as a rabbit in his teeth.

He bursts through the treeline onto a dirt road. It's not one he knows. The field on the other side of it is fallow and covered in weeds. The moon paints it all in pearly light. Grass is bleached white as bone, and when Draco lifts his chin, nose raised to the night air to get another drugging inhale of that enticing scent, it hits him like a physical blow.

They're _here_.

He turns slowly. His wolf hates it, gnashing and clawing inside of him, desperate to reach their mate, their Chosen. But Draco knows he'll only see them the first time once, and he wants it to be burned indelibly in his mind, a scar and a mark that he'll never be able to erase. It's a moment that deserves time and patience, and though it takes all of his strength and control to not leap upon this person he knows like his own skin though he's never met them before, he moves slowly.

The man is standing in the middle of the road, an axe in his right hand. It's limp by his side, a bundle of cut wood under his other arm. His hair is as dark as the night, and the moonlight catches and glances off of his curls like stars. His eyes are a green like summer leaves in the deepest part of the forest. His clothes are simple and stained, worn with time and frequent washing. Linen shirt, leather trousers, heavy boots. A necklace of braided leather rests in the hollow of his neck, and Draco can make out the man's pulse there, its speed increasing the longer Draco looks. As he looks at Draco in return, the bundle of wood under his arm falls to the ground in a clattering pile. The axe joins it a moment later.

After that is only silence.

The man lifts his head to the moon and frowns. "The blue moon," he says to himself. "Tonight's a Claiming." His voice is as much of a temptation as his scent and his body, the timbre rich and low even when tinged with self-reproach. He curses quietly to himself.

Draco shifts forward. "Tonight is a Claiming, open to any in the forest under the light of the moon." The man stills, his eyes green like the pine, his skin dark like the earth. Draco wants to touch it, to feel the richness of this newly discovered land.

"You're not going to let me go, are you?" The man shifts his weight, and Draco moves with him, leaning forward like the tide drawn by the moon. "What do you want?"

It's too difficult of a question for Draco to answer. He doesn't know how to distill what he wants from this man into a simple answer, into something that won't take years for Draco to explain and show. Instead of answering, his throat too full with his hopes for their future, he takes a step forward.

"I don't…" The man glances to the axe, then back to Draco. "Should I be afraid?"

"Never." The word rips from him, the question as sharp as a blade in his chest. "Not of me."

"I can feel it. Can feel you." He swallows, his pulse beating beneath his skin. "What do I do?"

Draco smiles behind the skull. "Run."

And the man does.

Draco howls, joy coursing through him with his blood and the sharp tang of desire. It tastes like citrus and steel, and he counts his heartbeats — one, two, three — before bursting into a loping run after the man.

The dirt road beneath his feet is soft and gives way easily. The man, his Chosen, is wearing leather boots and his footfalls are loud and steady ahead of Draco. When he veers into the fallow field, it makes Draco smile. He won't let himself be easy prey for Draco's wolf.

The field is rocky and filled with dry grasses that cut into Draco's soft, human feet. Growling, he shakes his head at the pain, and the headdress falls to the ground. He takes a lungful of air, notes the specific scent of the place, and promises to return for it, but not until after. There is something more important than symbolism and tradition, and he's getting farther away. Howling again, Draco finally lets his wolf free.

His body cracks and shifts, transforms. Ineffective human nails become claws. His feet lengthen and grow as they dig into the earth. His hair, long and white-blond like his father's, covers his body in a thick pelt, ruffed around his shoulders and neck. He falls onto his hands, but they've already turned into paws, and then he's racing after his mate in the body of a wolf.

The forest swallows the man, and Draco runs after, unafraid. This is his territory, his home, and the man fleeing him is panting and laughing, smelling of confused excitement. Draco's giddy with it, and he wants to play with this man, wants to bound about like a pup. He yips and howls, wolfish laughter tumbling from his mouth as he slowly shortens the distance between them. Draco hears quiet cursing mixed with laughter, and it's the most beautiful sound Draco's ever heard.

It draws him forward as much as the man's scent, richer now that he's sweating beneath his clothes. Draco darts in, nipping at the man's heels, and he feels satisfaction when the man avoids Draco's flashing teeth with a graceful leap. It gains him a few inches, but Draco's loping run eats that distance up, and when he reaches for his mate this time, the man stumbles and falls.

Even as he tumbles to the ground, he's graceful. The leaves covering the forest floor cushion him, and then Draco's standing over him, panting down into the man's face. His eyes are dark, their color muted to black by the thick branches above them. But his mouth is red and open, his skin rich and sweat-damp.

"Your name," he pants, staring up into Draco's lupine face with disbelieving elation. "What's your name?"

The transformation comes slowly, Draco's wolf unwilling to do anything except claim its mate, but he forces himself to return to his human form. His bones crack and sinew snaps, and a yell rips from his throat as he becomes human again.

"Draco," he breathes. "My name is Draco."

Now that he's in the form of a man, he's filled with a man's desires. His mate is lying beneath him in a bed of leaves. Even through the disguise of clothing, his body is thickly muscled, his hips narrow and trim. Draco's prick hardens and thickens as he leans in to press his nose to the man's throat. He's overwhelmed by citrus-and-steel, and his tongue darts out to taste it. Draco can feel the man's pulse quicken beneath his lips, and he wants to bite.

A hand tangles in Draco's hair, startling him to stillness. It doesn't draw him closer, but it doesn't push him away. Instead, it turns into a caress, a delicate questing of fingers that has Draco shuddering. "Harry," the man — Harry — says as he draws his fingers through the length of Draco's hair before tangling it like a rope around his fist.

"Harry." It settles in Draco's chest with a feeling like home, and he closes his eyes in pleasure. "Mine."

"Yours." Harry tugs on Draco's hair, pulling him from the crook of Harry's neck so that they can look at each other, eye to eye. "Mine."

Draco's kissed before, has played at intimacy and love with his pack mates. But it's nothing like this. This kiss is heat and desire and _home_. There was a piece of himself missing, and now, it's returned, pressed into his mouth by Harry's. It sinks into him, settles in his chest like a second heartbeat, and when he pulls back to breathe in Harry's scent, he realizes the new pulse in his veins is beating in time with Harry's.

Harry groans at the loss of Draco's mouth and pulls him closer. Their bodies press against each other, the leaves underneath crushed by the combined weight of their bodies. It blends with Harry's scent, and Draco ruts against Harry's hip. He's hard under his leather trousers, and Draco reaches for them with clawed hands, desperate to feel skin against skin. He's surprised when his hands meet Harry's, both of them fumbling at fastenings.

Draco's wolf takes over after that. Everything narrows to the focus of skin against skin, the taste of sweat on his tongue. Cloth and leather tear. Skin bruises. Harry moans beneath Draco, his hands wandering across the breadth of Draco's back to move lower, gripping and pulling Draco's hips against his body. His whispered litany of Draco's name is nearly drowned out by the vicious pounding of Draco's heart, but it weaves through Draco like the moonlight through the branches above them, filling him with a soft glow. Heat pools in his gut, in his heart, and when it grows to the breaking point, overwhelming in its perfection, he loses himself in the heat of his mate's body.

He knows he's going too fast, should take more care with his mate, but Harry's cry is all pleasure, no pain, and his body is open and welcoming. It draws Draco in until his hips are flush against Harry's arse, and when he grabs at the ridge of Harry's pelvis, Harry lifts to help.

"More," he pants, writhing against Draco's buried length. "Give me more."

And Draco does. He pulls out until he's nearly falling from Harry's body, then glides back in. It forces the breath from Harry's body, but he's laughing and moaning, pulling Draco's mouth down to his for a kiss that tastes sharp like steel. They kiss like a fight, both of them trembling and aching. Draco presses his hips forward in a punishing rhythm, one that leaves his back covered in sweat and his gut filling with heat.

He isn't surprised when his knot starts to swell, but Harry is. His hands, which had tried to drag Draco closer, still on Draco's back before falling to his hips, holding him back.

"What is that?" he says into the heat of Draco's mouth.

"It means you're mine," Draco says. He kisses Harry softly, reverently. "It means that we're to be one."

"What…" Harry groans as Draco presses deeper, the width of his knot forcing Harry's body further open. "What is it? What does it do?"

"It ties us together." It hurts Draco to ask, but he does anyway. "If you don't want…"

"No, no." Harry's hands tangle in his hair again, pulling it away from Draco's face before Harry's fingers coast over Draco's cheekbones and jawline. "No, I want it. I want you. I just… Will it hurt?"

Draco wants to say no, but he can't lie to this man. "I don't want it to."

"Then…" Harry lifts his hips, pressing the knot against his rim in a way that has stars exploding behind Draco's eyes. "Now, please."

Draco kisses Harry, deep and long and wet. He darts his tongue in to taste steel-and-citrus, licks over the pearly white of his teeth, nips at the plump ripeness of Harry's lower lip. And while he has his mate distracted, moaning and writhing beneath him, he presses his knot forward until it breaches Harry's entrance.

The man curses, his fingers tightening in Draco's hair to the point of pain. It feels earned, equal. If his mate's body should no longer sing with pleasure, then Draco's shouldn't either. But as Harry's fingers loosen in Draco's hair, and Draco's hips move in short, aborted thrusts, they both find their way back to it. Harry's cock is hard and heavy between them, and their skin is sticky and slick with his precome. Draco can barely think, Harry's body holding Draco's cock so hot and tight and perfect.

"It's," Harry gasps, hand scrabbling against Draco's back, "oh God, it's so much. I can't… Oh, fuck. Draco, I can't…"

Harry's shaking hand brushes against Draco's stomach when he wraps it around his prick, and after only a few quick, frantic strokes, he comes. His head is tilted back, eyes squeezed shut, body tensed and tensing, and Draco feels it all around his cock, Harry's body milking Draco's knot in a persistent wave of strain and release. A heartbeat later, he falls after his mate, the world exploding into stars, into a new universe with galaxies swirling around them like falling leaves and glowing light.

He comes and comes and comes, his body flooded with pleasure as it floods Harry's. An idle, distant part of Draco can feel his seed seeping out from where Harry's body is clamped around the thickened base of Draco's prick, and that same part is pleased at how he's filled his mate to overflowing. The rest of him, though, is too focused on making this man his, on covering Harry with Draco's scent and seed, of fulfilling the Claim. And through it all, he's rocked by a pleasure like he's never felt before, an overwhelming sense of joy that's both physical and emotional, a nearly religious thing that has tears gathering in his eyes. Though his vision is softened by salt water, he looks at Harry replete beneath him, that red mouth curved into a grin, those green eyes dark with pleasure and lassitude, and Draco comes apart, transformed.

When his arms finally give out and he falls onto Harry, the man huffs out a startled breath, then laughs before turning them onto their sides. Draco is still locked in Harry's body, and their shifting bodies make him moan, his cock pulsing again as it pulls. Harry wraps his leg around Draco's hip, the other stretched next to Draco. Draco shifts forward, easing the pull on his knot as he presses closer to Harry's hips. Draco's wrung out by pleasure and happiness, and he trails his fingers over the planes of Harry's face, memorizing each rise and fall of bone and flesh, newly found and infinitely precious to him.

"Where did you come from?" Harry asks, his smile as soft as moonlight on bare skin. "How did you find me?"

"Your scent," Draco says as he nuzzles into Harry's throat, his nose pressed close to capture the bright, shining sweetness of sweat and skin.

"And now what?" Harry trails his fingers through Draco's hair, brushing leaves from the silver strands though his own hair is likely tangled with even more. "I can feel you." Draco gives a short thrust of his hips, and it makes Harry gasp, then laugh. "Not like that, you lech. Here." His hand settles in the center of his chest, over his heart. "I can feel you here. Like you're a part of me."

"I am," Draco says, kissing Harry's pulse because he can't stop wanting his lips on his mate's skin. "You're mine, and I'm yours."

"Mine and yours," Harry whispers back, pulling Draco closer even though there's no space between them. Not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and viewing! Please support the artist/author by clicking on the kudos button and leaving a comment below! ♥


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